Fragments to frameworks: streamlining enterprise outbound email creation
Lenovo, North America
For a global technology leader like Lenovo, maintaining brand integrity while scaling complex email marketing communications can’t rely on everyone just getting it right.
As a complex global technology enterprise, telling a clear story that consistently maintains brand standards across all marketing channels is challenging. With multiple internal and external contributors all introducing their individual spin on the brand, the cracks were beginning to show.
The Walk helped Lenovo bridge the gap between scale and consistency, developing a versatile master template system, in their Marketo instance, engineered for consistency, but flexible enough to work across different types of email communications and business groups.
The destination
The master template system was required to do more than just power emails. It needed to ensure every send, across every team, looked and felt unmistakably like Lenovo.
The primary objective was to replace disparate, hardcoded HTML emails with a flexible, modular template system that could be adapted to every email type, including transactional, thought leadership, newsletter, and offer-based.
The route
We began by breaking down common use cases and defining a versatile modular structure that would offer users sufficient flexibility within a framework. High fidelity design brought this to life in the Lenovo brand system. We added enough options and controls in Marketo to differentiate emails, without diverging from the brand look and feel.
The system was rigorously tested and refined, then documented in a comprehensive guide featuring clear layout principles, annotated visual references, and specific guidance that any team could follow.
The Walk
Lenovo now has a unified, enterprise-ready Marketo email template system built to work across diverse teams and email types. By replacing a patchwork of rigid, siloed communications with a well-documented modular framework within Marketo, the business can now produce on-brand emails at scale with less handover time, fewer errors, and no dependency on specialist HTML or Marketo knowledge.
The result is a system where every email, whether produced by an internal team or an external partner, is grounded in the same layouts and brand standards, and the customer experiences a unified and consistently presented enterprise brand.
The Marketo template provided Lenovo with the flexibility required to meet their ever-evolving needs. In this example for Lenovo Aura, the template is easily adapted to accomplish the campaign’s darker style.
The layout used for the Lenovo monthly newsletter supports complex content while preserving readability and brand consistency for desktop users.
In this example for Lenovo’s CIO email outreach, our Marketo layouts were used to deliver a professionally designed and visually aligned nurture experience in every inbox.
The modular Marketo wireframe architecture provides a structural blueprint for rapid, consistent email production at scale.
The Lenovo email template guide that turns complex layouts into clear instructions for every team.
